Back-to-Back Co-Champions/The Future of this Blog

Congratulations to Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam! They are Back-to-Back Co-Champions.

Winning Words
Vanya: scherenschnitte 
Gokul: nunatak

Last year, Ansun Sujoe and Sriram Hathwar, won the National Spelling Bee (feuilleton/stichomythia).

It was also exciting to hear words that have been used before, such as urgrund (2007) and sprachgefühl  (2006 - Round 1 Test).

Also, Kavya Shivashankar (2009 Champion: Laodicean), is the sister of Vanya - the first siblings to win the National Spelling Bee.

Congratulations to all spellers this year! 

Spell with Your Dream!
Spell with Your Heart!
Spell with Your Love!

The Future of this Blog

Back in 2011, I began this blog to give tips and advice, links to resources and uses, and updates for the Bee. Now, I am about to graduate from high school and begin college this fall. Each year, I realize I post less and less. My major next year will require a lot of hours from me, along with several generals I still have to complete.

I do not know if I will let anyone take over this blog quite yet. I will keep this blog up, just in case anyone finds it useful to them (even if I don't deem this as a main source of information/advice).

For now, I wish you spellers all the best. Good luck with future endeavors and dreams.

    Sincerely,
           Anne

P.S. If you discover any errors in this blog, please feel free to email me at spellingchamp135@gmail.com or comment below!

Championship Finals

Finals are finished, so now I can post! Championship finals are in less than twenty minutes. 

You can watch the Bee here (scroll down until you see the spelling bee section)...

http://espn.go.com/watchespn/index#type/upcoming/

...or view the results here as each speller spells. 

http://spellingbee.com/public/results/2015/round_results

There are 10 championship finalists this year, including several veterans. We wish them all the best. I will write to you when the champion is declared.

Bee Week went by quickly this year. Congratulations to all the spellers this year! 

Sorry for the Lack of Updates

Dear Spellers,

       Since I am a senior this year, I have been busy with preparing for college and for the end of the year. I had several AP exams and will have several more finals. I will do my best to update you as much as possible with this week's Bee activities and provide tips, but I cannot make any promises.
       For several years, I have run this blog to provide tips and give updates on the Bee. Each year it seems as if the posts have become less and less. Next year, when I start college I will be unable to update this blog. I will keep this blog, since I believe it has useful information regarding the Bee.
       My finals are this week until Thursday, so I will not be able to watch the Bee until that evening.
       For now, I wish all spellers the best of luck! Spell with Your Dream! Spell With Your Heart! Spell With Your Love!

Here are the four spellers from Utah this year (Park Record is a new sponsor this year)


  250 Meimi A. Teeples Utah Valley University, Orem, Utah
  251 Brody Dicks Park Record, Park City, Utah
  252 James Bryner Southeast Education Service Center, Price, Utah
  253 Ariana K. Babbitt The City Journals and Overstock.com, Salt Lake City, Utah

This year, my sister placed 2nd at the Salt Lake Valley Bee, but even if she lost she felt as if her friend deserved the championship more. That's true sportsmanship.

It has been 52 Years since the Bee had Co-Champions

Of course, we know the National Spelling Bee happens every year, but how often do you see Co-Champions at this event? Not very often, and it has been 52 years since the last Co-Champions (and Akeelah and the Bee does not count, since that was fictional). The other three times there have been Co-Champions were in 1950 - Diana Reynard and Colquitt Dean (meticulosity), 1957 - Sandra Owen and Dana Bennett (schappe), and 1962 - Nettie Crawford and Michael Day (esquamulose).

Congratulations to Sriram Hathwar and Ansun Sujoe! These two, after a grueling 22 rounds of the National Spelling Bee and 16 rounds of the Championship Finals, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Their winning words were stichomythia and feuilleton, respectively (the Scripps Spelling Bee DS game actually has feuilleton).

In Round 16, Sriram and Ansun both misspelled their words (corpsbruder and antigropelos, respectively). Sriram misspelled his word as korbruiter and Ansun misspelled his word as antigropolos.  My friend and I called this an Akeelah and the Bee moment (except that Sriram and Ansun receive different words - unlike Akeelah and the Bee when the spellers receive the same word, after one misspells it; and we're pretty sure that the Sriram and Ansun weren't misspelling on purpose, unlike in the movie when the two spellers misspelled on purpose because they want the other person to win).   

Corpsbruder is French + German. The French was corps (can be defined as a group of people, especially in the military), and the German was bruder (which literally means brother). The definition used was: a close comrade. If you think deeply, comrade can mostly associate with the words friend, ally, etc. and you know it's French, so most likely you could assume corps then the second half is the German word bruder. Most people who have brothers like to keep them close, or you have a really good friend who's like a brother, so if you know the German word, bruder would probably come to mind.

The other word was antigropelos. Ansun got most of the word right, except that he spelled the part of the word as polos (those pesky schwas!). It means waterproof leggings; The Greek root -pelos means mud, but I do not know if he could have gotten that out of waterproof leggings, but it seems like spellers have to think out of the box.

I will do an analysis this weekend (hopefully) on the other words from the Bee. There were a lot of words that I knew and a lot that left me thinking (including the ones I didn't know).

Another Akeelah and the Bee moment: If you've seen the movie, you may remember that after the spellers misspell that they continue going on until the end and are declared Co-Champions; this is what happened at this Bee; Ansun and Sriram are 7th and 8th graders, just like the two champions in the movie (Akeelah and Dylan), except that Ansun went to nationals twice and Sriram made it five times (missing only 2010 and 2012); in the movie Akeelah won on her first try, and Dylan - on his third.

Ansun went from not advancing to semifinals in 2013 to winning the Bee in 2014, which is also extremely rare, but it can happen. He's also the first 7th grader since 2000 to win the National Spelling Bee (when it was won by George Thampy); Sriram is the five-peat since 2006 to win the Bee (when it was won by Kerry Close).

Congratulations spellers! This is one of the greatest and rarest Bees that have occurred in history. I'm pretty sure Ansun and Sriram are elated, yet knackered!

Good luck with future Bees and endeavors!

Championship Finals Tonight!

Here are your championship finalists!!

‪Speller 38 Jacob Williamson from Cape Coral, Florida 

Speller 263‬ Tejas Muthusamy from Glen Allen, Virginia (he's the youngest finalist at the age of 11)

‪Speller 87‬ Tajaun Gibbison from Mandeville, Jamaica 

‪Speller 188‬ Ashwin Veeramani from North Royalton, Ohio (he had the same placard number as his sister, Anamika Veeramani, who won in 2010; maybe it's a lucky number)

‪Speller 43‬ Mary Horton from West Melbourne, Florida 

‪Speller 58‬ Alia Abiad from Western Springs, Illinois

‪Speller 232‬ Kate Miller from Abilene, Texas

‪‎Speller 139‬ Gokul Venkatachalam from Chesterfield, Missouri

‪Speller 237‬ Ansun Sujoe from Fort Worth, Texas

‪‎Speller 255‬ Samuel Pereles from Charlottesville, Virginia

‪Speller 20‬ from Neha Konahalla from Cupertino, California

‪‎Speller 154‬ Sriram Hathwar from Painted Post, New York (he first went to nationals in 2008 and placed 3rd last year)

http://public.spellingbee.com/public/results/2014/finishers/html

Sriram Hathwar was the only speller from last year's championship finalists to make it to make it this far this year. Syamantak Payra was eliminated in semifinals, and Vanya Shivashankar, after the finalists were announced; she has one year left. 

‪

Good luck to the finalists! 

Preliminaries are Over/Semifinals are Tomorrow

Preliminaries are over, and there were forty-six spellers who advanced to semifinals.

Here are the Round Results

Spelling
http://public.spellingbee.com/public/results/2014/round_results/summary/2
http://public.spellingbee.com/public/results/2014/round_results/summary/3

Vocabulary
http://public.spellingbee.com/public/results/2014/round_results_vocab/summary/2
http://public.spellingbee.com/public/results/2014/round_results_vocab/summary/3

Round 1 Test (Spelling and Vocabulary)
http://public.spellingbee.com/public/results/graded_words?reportFormat=1&round=1

And here are your semifinalists:
http://public.spellingbee.com/public/results/2014/finishers/html?type=semi

Among these semifinalists are last year's championship finalists: Vanya Shivashankar, Sriram Hathwar, and Syamantak Payra.

Unfortunately, no one from Utah advanced to Semifinals this year. Great job, Michael Jones, Mikayla Hall, and Grange Simpson - Utah is proud!

Here are the words they spelled in Rounds 2 and 3:

#251 Mikayla Hall - hafiz; ranunculus (misspelled as rununculus)
#252 Grange Simpson - durwan; cornichon
#279 Michael Jones - tanha; Cypriot

According to the vocabulary results for Rounds 2 and 3, Mikayla and Grange missed one of their vocabulary words, and Michael got both of his right. Great job!

Tomorrow Semifinals will begin at 10 AM Eastern Time (8 AM where I am).

Good luck to all!

P.S. Sorry for the lack of updates this year. School ends next week, and I have a lot of projects to finish. I will write after Semifinals and after Championship Finals. If there's anything you want to know just comment, and I'll make a blog post response.

Spelling Bee Update/Tips

I just finished my math final, and it was great! Now back to Bee business. Yesterday, the spellers had a barbecue and had the Round 1 Test today. Tomorrow, the 281 spellers will take the stage in front of cameras, an audience, etc. The pressure's on!

I'm pretty sure these spellers are prepared, but here's some advice:

• Say the word back to the pronouncer. He'll make sure you're saying it correctly. 
• Ask questions: definition, origin, part of speech, sentence, and alternate pronunciations.
• Make sure you think hard.
• If you are in the middle of a word and need to start over, say, "May I please start over", and make sure you retrace the letters you first said, because once you say a letter, it cannot be taken back.
• Say the word, spell it, then say the word again (saying the word before and after spelling is not required, but it is best so the judges know when you start and finish)
• Watch the time 
• As you spell the word do not be nervous or think about anything else. Completely block out the audience and focus on the word. 

Remember:

"There are no immediate eliminations for misspelling or providing an incorrect answer in the Preliminaries Test. Upon incorrectly spelling a word in Round Two or Three, the speller is eliminated from the competition. Spellers eliminated during Round Two are tied for the same place. Spellers eliminated during Round Three are tied for the same place. Immediately after Round Three a “maximum of 50” standard is applied to remaining spellers’ scores accrued during the Preliminaries. Spellers’ scores are plotted on a chart. Beginning at 36 on the chart, spellers at each consecutive scoring level are added until a sum of no more than 50 spellers has been attained. All remaining spellers are eliminated. All spellers eliminated after Round Three and before the start of the Semifinals are tied for the same place."

http://spellingbee.com/contest-rules

Good luck to all! 

Spell with Your Dream

Spell with Your Heart

Spell with Your Love